hyperbolic space info for the 500 words

Adam, this is the 100word on the hyperbolic space for the 500 words. hope that it helps.

Hyperbolic space.

The concept of a hyperbolic space is that as a position moves further away from a point on a plane, it expands. This does not sound too complicated but, visualizing the definition is very difficult. One of the first representations of a hyperbolic space was done with a crochet. Increasing the number of stitches every row allows the 2 dimensional planes to expand to a 3 dimensional form. In mathematics, a hyperbolic function has a very similar nature as it expands in value along the x and the y axis. An example of a hyperbolic space from the nature is the coral reefs.

Coral reef model made from crochet.

Brief For The Final Week!

 Seems like we made all of our major decision today and now we can speed ahead with production, which is great. Below is my rough diagram for our installation, and I was looking around Level 6 and 7 today and saw many well lit areas our piece would look great in. 

Heres the to-do list to wrap this assignment up:

1. Powerpoint presentation - Nancy

2. 500 Words - Adam (With help from John, to be sent to Nancy before Sunday)

3. Crochet construction - Nancy & Adam

4. Hyperbolic construction - Sebastian & John

5. Investigation into lighting possibilities - John

6. Investigation into colouring (faint spray paint options) - Adam

7. Installation - At this point will be everyone, unless we finish early. 

8. Presenting in class - a bit from everyone - maybe something like: intro from Adam, slides/process from Nancy, constructing the orb by John and final product by Sebastian?

Other Notes;

1. Everyone bring your own photographic devices on monday to take photos of our piece to use in your individual application task. 

2. Just so we all know, the diameters of the 3 objects are as follows;

LARGE: 15cm crochet, 30cm hyperbolic sphere.

MEDIUM: 10cm crochet, 20cm hyperbolic sphere.

SMALL: 5cm crochet, 10cm hyperbolic sphere. 

construction of the acrylic shell

we used hexagons and pentagons to create a spherical shell for the crochets.
firstly we need to know how many pieces of each shapes we need so i created a model to count each shapes.

There were 22 hexagons and 12 pentagons.
Now, we needed to find out the ratio between the side of the shapes and the diameter of the sphere as we will need this data to create the 30cm, 20cm and 10cm spheres.
The side of the shapes was 35mm and the diameter of the sphere was approximately 160mm.
To work out the ratio, I divided the length of the diameter of the sphere to the side of the shape.

The result was 4.6. to get the size of the shape for our spheres, we simply divide the diameter of the sphere by 4.6 and that gives us the size of the sides of the hexagon and the pentagon.

Crocheting With Clear Plastic Cord

I was really lucky to find some plastic cord (one clear and another with a thin metallic strand inside it) at Reverse Garbage the other week.

They are definitely a bit trickier to crochet with as they are not as flexible as wool thread. However I found the results pretty intriguing and effective, so would recommend this material should we need it. 

We've definitely done all our research at this point and its time to make our installation, which although it feels a bit late I think our project will be very well informed and unique. 

Acrylic bonding

I found a website that goes through a bunch acrylic bonding products.
It goes through the pre gluing process, types of joint techniques and the appropriate bonding agent. It also describes bonding acrylics with other materials such as PVC.
http://ozreef.org/diy_plans/techniques/gluing_acrylic.html

light idea

The application of LED string lights or optical fibre seems to be too extreme, costly and hard to execute. i think that a solution to this problem is using the single light source in the hyperbolic rather than having a multiple lights. we could use a light bulb to project the pattern/shape of our hyperbolic like this installation.

another solution could be to use a light source from outside the work to create a projection of the hyperbolic

Circular Hyperbolic

Sebastian was wondering if we could create a circular hyperbolic, after some research we found out we cannot create a circle with the geometric hyperbolic structure but this is the closest to a circle one could create using the geometric hyperbolic structure:

Class Research.

We're class now, researching some material options: fibre optics

It's a pretty cool material, except for the fact that it costs $400 - $700 for the illuminators (the light source for the fibre optics), after this we didn't bother finding out the cost of the fibre optics though we suspect it to be much less dear than the light source.

Now we are researching other materials such as LED lights, all this research is for the crocheted part of the installation, for the paper geometric model we are thinking of using acrylic, as a casing for the crocheted lights

As an alternative, we could use reflective fabrics, such as sequinned fabrics, which reflect the light well

  

Fabric could be winded around rope, which can be crocheted into a hyperbolic 

Acrylic Material Option

So I've been researching into acrylic as a material option, it is cheaper than plastic and has a glass and resin like quality with how it reacts to light, and how it can be moulded. Plus from what i can tell its quite easy to add some colour which i know we discussed briefly in class. I could be worth investigating more how we could use it? - I think for the hyperbolic shape? We could get it precut which would make our lives a bit easier.

Mood Board

I thought I'd just whip up a little mood board to visualise some of the references for our concept. 

The references strongly link to geometry (in both nature and the man-made environment) and transparent forms that have an illuminating relationship with light. Both these notions are relevant in our hyperbolic project. 

This week in class we learned  how to hyperbolic crochet! It was much simpler than it looks and here is a picture of my finished product, it look me a few days to finish it but I was pretty much obsessed. During class, we discussed the idea further and Sebastian thought of an idea of crocheting lights, it would look amazing plus it ties in with the concept of light refraction (because without light there would be no refraction). I think it would be very interesting to work with crochet and an unusual crocheting material as the aesthetic would be vastly different to a typical knitted crochet hyperbolic. A crocheted hyperbolic looks very dainty, ruffly and quite feminine, but if it is crocheted in an industrial material it would look sculptural and controlled in a good way. 


My finished crochet:

I really like the idea of creating a light installation, merging the paper model and crochet together. Whether it the crochet encases the light, or paper model or the other way around. But now I am unsure of how a light installation ties in with the light refraction concept. Here are some great light installations:

Bruce Munro Field of Light Long Knoll Installation

I like how it balances controlled with the uncontrolled, the light itself is fragile and free while the casing is very structural, much like the marrying of the paper model (the structural geometrics of hyperbolics) and the crochet.

Anselm Reyle of Neon Light Installation

This is very different and uses light in an interesting way, the way the lights are all over the place and tangled together just reminded me of the crochet we did in class

Alan Jaras work of "bending light" is very interesting because it is an example of how light and light refraction can be combined into a project. 

“Using only film, and without a lens on the camera, in what Alan says could still be described as a photogram, he shoots a targeted light source through and a piece of art glass or formed plastic to capture the created refraction patterns. The results, what could be described as ‘images of strange microscopic or deep sea creatures or even galaxies forming in deep space,’ pull at the viewers perception of digital and analog, art and science, all the while expanding our imaginations and understanding of the world around us.”

Stephen Knapp is an artist specialising in light and creating "lightpaintings". His art is beautiful in capturing the concept of light refraction by using lights. Here are some images...

Creating A Cardboard Hyperbolic - Week 1

Creating this hyperbolic was a great starting point to understand the way a hyperbolic inhabits a space. It was very 'growth like' and almost uncontrollable as it spidered over the workplace. 

Material Possibility

Working with perspex or plastic can be hard
but this company does custom cutting or perspex and have clear rods and tubes plus a HUGE range of colored acrylic. So maybe worth while seeing if they can cut maybe a hyperbolic shapes for us?? PLASTIX

Source of Inspiration Tokujin Yoshioka

Tokujin Yoshioka is an Japanese artist, instillation creator, product design, fashion designer and light designer. Who has work very closely with Issey Miyake (who himself will be good inspiration for this assignment). Known for his simplicity and ingenuity of his concepts and holistic approach to design, Tokujin’s interdisciplinary practice has garnered him much attention.  Tokujin experiments with a sophisticated play of materials and shapes using his art as a means of communicating something fascinating, surprising, joyful and unexpected. I think things we could adapt for you own instillation, he plays with light and materials in an interesting way which will be beneficial for Group xyz to play with. I could spend hours looking at pictures of his products and spaces. But I collected a few I think suit our concept and theme. 

This photo is of a stain glass window in a church in which it was created out of just crystals

Conceptual Beginnings

Alright lets kick this project off! 

For a concept I would like to explore the notion of 'light refraction'. I think this would be relevant for a multitude of reasons, as well as it being an intriguing concept that I think will unfold nicely throughout the project. 

These are the angles from which we can explore the concept:

1. I am inspired by the space we are designing for; its a wide, empty, light well and I think we should be very conscious of the elements of that space. Something that considers the natural light there could blend into the space effectively, making the object look less 'dumped' and more site specific. 

2. I think both crochet and the hyperbolic could be applied to the 'light reraction' concept. Its early days but I am imagining working with transparent to semi-transparent materials, such as perspex, acetate, clear thread, and plastic cord. I am excited to see how we could work with these materials. 

3. There are a multitude of references to explore for this concept that we will continue to evaluate on this blog. 

4. After seeing last weeks slide presentation, I think this idea is very different and allows us to do something bold and new with the brief.